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Apostle of Tweaked Seeds Grew a Giant in Agribusiness as a Wary Europe Balked

By

Goran Mijuk and

Stephen Miller

Updated Nov. 8, 2008 12:01 a.m. ET

A powerful force in agribusiness, Heinz Imhof sowed the promise of genetically modified crops around the world, reaping a fine crop of controversy along the way.

Mr. Imhof, who died after a long illness on Oct. 10 at age 66, earned the nickname Father of Syngenta for orchestrating the 2000 merger of the crop-protection and seeds divisions of Switzerland's Novartis AG and Anglo-Swedish AstraZeneca PLC, creating a company that employs 21,000 people in 90 countries around the world.